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An insider’s guide to Costa Rica

There aren’t many places in this world where you can hike a volcano, paddle a river rapids, surf a breathtaking beach, trek through a rain forest and have a monkey steal your lunch—all in one day. Costa Rica, Alaska Airlines’ newest international destination, is a tropical paradise and mecca for eco-tourism, and now it’s just a nonstop flight away from Los Angeles.

Ready to book your trip? Flights will be available for purchase for the new Costa Rica routes soon, pending approval by Costa Rican civil aviation authorities.

Christian Ramirez, a former employee of Alaska’s sister carrier Horizon Air, who now lives in Costa Rica, shares a few must-do’s with adventure-seeking travelers:

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Seattle to Nashville: From the Rainy City to the Music City

If you’ve lived in or around Seattle for a decent amount of time, you’ve probably made yourself familiar with the music-friendly options the Rainy City has to offer. But for those looking to expand their musical tastes, Alaska Airlines has an offer you can’t refuse: Direct flights from Seattle to Nashville, Tennessee beginning this fall.

Book your flight today: alaskaair.com.

Here are some things you should plan to check out when flying from the Rainy City to the Music City:

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Alaska launching Apple Watch app

The mobile team at Alaska Airlines is all about saving travelers time and hassle.

So when they received the developer kit for Apple’s brand-new Apple Watch – launching tomorrow – back in November, they couldn’t wait to get started.

Four months of planning, customer interviews, field trips to the airport and many, many sticky note sketches later, they are ready to launch a simple, beautiful, wearable companion to Alaska’s award-winning mobile app when the Apple Watch store launches April 24.

Don’t have the Alaska Airlines mobile app? Download it here: iPhone | Android | Windows Phone

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Ask an Alaska pilot: what’s your favorite airport to fly into?

By Doug Branch, Captain, Alaska Airlines

Doug Branch’s interest in aviation began around the same time he could say the word “plane.” Captain Branch has deep roots in the Pacific Northwest, including growing up on Bainbridge Island and learning to fly at Eastern Washington’s Big Bend Community College. After three years flying for a commuter airline in the Midwest, Doug joined Alaska Airlines in 2001. doug-branch-ask-a-pilotAfter 14 years, he has a passion for doing things safely and efficiently and is honored to have the opportunity to educate passengers and to facilitate life’s great memories by getting them safely to where they need to go.

In the “Ask an Alaska Pilot” series, he will address common questions he gets from friends, family and travelers. Do you have a question you’ve been wanting to ask a pilot? Let us know in the comments and your question could be featured in a future post.

What’s your favorite airport to fly into, and why?

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Flight attendant secrets for exploring a new city on a dime

Flight attendants are not only experts in onboard safety, but also know how to make the most of a visit to a new city. They also know that when you are in a new and exciting city every night, you can’t spend a fortune on each layover.

So how do flight attendants explore new places without breaking the bank?

Flight attendant Rai Adair has been flying for Alaska for four years and loves the adventure and discovery that come with the job. She shares her top five tips for exploring new destinations on a budget.

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Statement on Alaska Airlines flight 448

Update 6:20 p.m., April 16

The Menzies Aviation ramp agent has been permanently banned from ever working on any Alaska Airlines flights.

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Travel like a pro: fly through airport security with TSA PreCheck

You’ve got your boarding pass on your phone. You self-tagged your bags and dropped them off with the nice agent at the counter. And you’ve only been at the airport for five minutes. You’ve got this down, you’re ready to be on that plane and go. But wait, the hard part’s not over. You still have to get through security.

Sound familiar? For many people, one of the biggest pain points of flying is getting through the security screening. The lines always seem to be long, it’s a pain to take your shoes off, pull your laptop out of your bag and put everything back together again afterward, and there’s always that guy just ahead of you who’s doing this for the first time and hadn’t quite prepared for it.

Somehow there’s a select group of people who get their own, quicker line and manage to get through with a lot less fuss. How do you get into this “elite” club? The answer: apply for the TSA’s PreCheck program.

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A note to customers traveling with medical conditions

By Ray Prentice, director of customer advocacy, Alaska Airlines

We wanted to reach out to you, our customers, to address a recent situation involving a customer whose travel was interrupted in Lihue, Hawaii.

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Seattle hospital patient requests special meal from North Pole – Alaska delivers

Phil and Jackie Pope.

As Phil Pope recovered from a stroke at a hospital near Seattle, the retired Alaska Airlines captain had a hankering for one particular thing: Chinese food from Pagoda Restaurant in North Pole, Alaska.

That’s where he and wife Jackie Pope, an Alaska Airlines flight attendant, planned to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary Feb. 11, near the rustic cabin where they live every summer.

Instead, Phil’s medical emergency grounded him in the intensive care unit at MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, Washington – more than 1,500 miles away from the famous honey-walnut shrimp that earned Pagoda chef Benny Lin a spot on Guy Fieri’s TV show “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.”

Since the Popes couldn’t travel to North Pole, their friends reasoned, why not send the food to them?

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Students compete to find clean-tech solutions to environmental problems

By Ben Raker, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and Halley Knigge, Alaska Airlines

A window that harnesses solar energy and sends electricity down its edge to feed the power grid; a hair dye with gold particles that limits the need for reapplications and reduces the chemicals sent down drains; road barriers that use old tires otherwise destined to be burned or sent to landfills—these are among the many concepts developed by entrepreneurial student teams in an annual competition hosted by the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

The 7-year-old competition is operating for the first time this year as the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge, in honor of the airline’s commitment to a decade of event sponsorship. The challenge calls for each team to define an environmental problem, find a solution to the problem, and present the market opportunity and impact potential of their solution, along with a working prototype.

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News alert: Internet connectivity

Update 11:35 p.m.

An earlier network outage has been restored. Customers are now able to book, change and check in for flights at alaskaair.com.

An Internet connectivity issue at 8 p.m. temporarily delayed 22 flights scheduled to depart between 9:45 – 11 p.m. by up to an hour. All systems were restored by 11:20 p.m. and we are working to restore our operation.

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Throwback Thursday: It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s got skis?

Alaska Airlines has been known for a lot of firsts. First airline to offer booking tickets on the Internet and first airline to guarantee your bags arrive on time. But passengers today would do a double-take if they had seen one of Alaska’s early firsts—first airline certified by the FAA to take off and land a Douglas DC-3 on skis!

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